


Muddy the Waters

by utsu



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8179324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utsu/pseuds/utsu
Summary: He moved through the temple and the flames of nearby candles extinguished in his wake, his newly released chakra leaking out and stifling every ounce of energy within those holy walls. The moment his sandals made contact with the earth outside of the stone temple, he felt the world shift underneath him, in a new direction he had not yet considered. He glanced up and stared defiantly into the sun, ignoring the subtle burn that began in his temples, and his smile was that of a predator’s, moments before the capture of prey.Hyuuga Hinata. This was going to be fun.





	

The first time he bothered to pay attention to her, she was covered in mud with a cut bleeding down the curve of her cheekbone.

And she was laughing.

As a young man, Uchiha Madara had more responsibilities than most. It wasn’t uncommon for him to walk past the rice fields on his way out of the village and towards the hidden temple in the forest, just outside of Konoha’s gates. His younger brother almost always accompanied him, and today was no different.

Izuna paused in his even strides, glancing down the slope with deceptively expressionless eyes. Madara paused with him, a stride later, and allowed himself to glance at the young woman knee-deep in the mud with an irritating but unquestionably present flicker of curiosity. She didn’t seem to mind the blood leaking down into her collar, or the foul stench of the mud she was seeped in.

She squelched across the field after a young boy with a mop of curly black hair, her hands leading her.

“A filthy game,” Madara muttered, unimpressed. Izuna tilted his head, not removing his gaze.

Before long, the woman captured her laughing prize and in just the same moment seemed to purposely acknowledge her newfound audience. The child squirmed in her hold but his laughter was unmistakable, as was the easy way that he clung to her. Madara wondered for a moment if the child belonged to the young woman, considering the likeness in shade of hair and pallor of skin.

She glanced up to them with a surprisingly sharp gaze, pearlescent eyes flashing. _Oh_ , Madara thought with much resignation. _Hyuuga_.

He wondered what branch she belonged to.

And then the child in her arms, curious with his captor’s sudden stillness, turned to follow her gaze and Madara found himself feeling surprise for the second time that morning.

There was no Sharingan gaze to clue him in, but Madara would recognize that bone structure anywhere. The brat belonged to his own lineage.

“Did you need something?” The woman called, gentle voice deceptively accommodating. There was a latent threat there, as though she suspected them of something malevolent. Madara found his eyebrow ticking in wonder; unusually expressive for him in the face of a stranger he knew nothing of and felt nothing towards. He knew without looking that Izuna’s expression would remain unchanged, as absent of feeling as ever.

“Your charge,” Madara called, his voice a familiar but rarely heard thunder over the land. “How did you come to find him?”

His eyes narrowed on the sudden tension in her shoulders, and the way she wrapped her arms more tightly around the child. The stillness in her spoke highly of prey, caught under the twin gazes of two prominent Uchiha stares, and all Madara could think when he looked at her was that she appeared a mother protecting her young from predators. The thought made him smile, a simple quirk to the corner of his usually unsmiling lips, and her eyes followed the change with intent concentration.

He wondered if that depthless gaze missed anything.

He wasn’t one to expect much from others, considering how high his expectations were. But something about her made him _want_ to expect more of her, to set a standard he deemed acceptable and see if she could _reach it_.

He didn’t even know her given name.

The breeze picked up, dragging along nearby willow branches to scrape over the earth with quiet brushes of natural melodies. Madara’s hair shifted similarly, though his vision remained entirely unimpeded; he watched her carefully, even as the child in her arms frowned at them.

“Pardon my rudeness, Uchiha-san,” she called to him, before glancing once, quickly, to Izuna. Madara found this pointed courtesy…curious. Was she always this forthcoming in the face of a potential threat?

“But I don’t see how that is any of your business.”

“Perhaps,” Madara said, taking a step closer to the ledge. Izuna stood in his shadow now, unmoving and critical of gaze. Madara could sense the curiosity in him, too, coiled but extending. Madara glanced pointedly to the child, catching his eyes and lifting his chin. The boy only frowned back, and turned away in sudden dismissal. He tucked his face in against the smooth column of the stranger’s neck, and his arms came up to hold onto her more tightly.

 _Interesting_ , Madara thought, though not without a flicker of disapproval. The boy surely knew they were, and as such, should have responded to their silent authority immediately. He certainly should not have turned away from them without even an introduction, and taken solace from the weight of their twin presences in the subtle underside of this young woman’s jaw.

“Or perhaps not,” Madara continued, stepping forward until fingers of grass bent under the toe of his sandal. “Considering that the child you hold is Uchiha.”

He watched carefully for signs of change in her expression, a widening of her eyes or the parting of surprised lips. He found nothing more than a stare that sharpened ever more, and the way that she turned just slightly away from them—providing the child more cover from her body, and them with a smaller target to retrieve.

Not that they were planning on taking the child from her, at least not yet, but where was the fun in letting her know that?

He watched her lift her chin, an infinitesimal movement that lesser eyes would have missed, and he could do nothing more than to take absolute notice of it. Of _her_.

Even covered in muck and knee-deep in mud, she somehow managed to look regal.

“He is,” she agreed. “However, he is not yours.”

Madara’s smile was a winged weapon, barbed and threatening.

“All Uchiha are ours.”

Covered in mud and wearing the wound on her cheek like a trophy, the woman did not bend under the boom of his voice, or the confidence in his frame. He stood tall and proud, shoulders thrust back, far and wide. He was as imposing figure on his worst days, and he’d woken this morning feeling spectacularly refreshed.

And yet the woman did not cow under his pressure, not even when he allowed his eyes to bleed red. He saw her eyes jump to trace the symbol on his forehead protector before returning back to his stare unflinchingly, and he thought about his _expectations_.

So she thought herself safe because of their allegiance to the same village. He filed that away for later perusal, as his brother finally moved forward, not enough to evade Madara’s shadow completely, but enough that their shoulders touched.

“We are going to be late,” Izuna reminded him, voice low and slightly exasperated. Madara should have known that Izuna would already have pegged his curiosity and planned to work around it. The boy was a bright one, after all.

“Ah,” Madara agreed, tilting his head down at the woman. He allowed the Sharingan to fade back into the shadows of his hooded gaze, and merely said, “Duty calls.”

In the moment before he turned away from her and continued on down the path towards the temple, Madara allowed the control over his emotions he’d held steadily throughout their conversation to fall away.

He was rewarded with the stiffening of her shoulders, the only reaction that he had correctly predicted of her, and he _relished_ it. Chills raced down his spine even as he turned away, elegant onyx robes swishing around his ankles. Izuna fell into step behind him, matching his stride easily.

Madara felt the woman’s gaze on him the entire way, until the path curved beyond the edge of the forest and the trees came between them. He smiled, and touched the tip of his tongue to the edge of his teeth.

“Interesting,” he said, tilting his head up towards the ever-blue sky. He heard Izuna sigh behind him, the first outward sign of his undoubted exasperation.

Madara ignored him.

 

✧

 

Hyuuga Hiashi had never impressed Madara.

He wasn’t progressive enough, too complacent in old rules and regulations. He had no initiative, never bothered to try to advance his clan beyond the already-set standard.  
  
Madara found him an absurdly dull opponent.

“Your clan has always led the police force,” Hiashi continued, his unsmiling mouth twisting around every word with purposeful absence of opinion. Madara perched his arm over his bent knee, resting his chin in his palm. That Hiashi refused to even voice an opinion he so clearly _had_ only made Madara think him weak, and Madara wasn’t in the business of dealing with those who couldn’t stand on equal ground with him.

Too tedious; this is much of the reason that Madara so insisted on bringing Izuna with him.

Madara had a mind sharp and barbed like a trap, and it served him well in clan politics. But he also had an insatiable curiosity that, when left alone, needed more stimulus than emotionless discussions regarding clan dynamics between the Uchiha and the Hyuuga. It was well known that the Uchiha were in charge of the police force, as Hiashi had so drably stated, and that the Hyuuga were involved with high level and hidden seals. The latter was lesser known information, simply because they didn’t have a force running through the streets with clan emblems on their uniforms.

Izuna, however, was patient enough to deal with the intricacies of clan discussions as well as pushing through the boredom that came from talking to someone who was set back in his ways. It helped, Madara supposed, that Izuna understood Hiashi well enough to know how to manipulate him without offending him. It was this patience that had led the Uchiha and the Hyuuga to many agreements, and many more compromises.

“Perhaps,” Izuna said, when Madara pulled himself back into the discussion. “However, the complications that may arise before a polled convergence could temporarily stall the development of joint units. This seems rather redundant, considering the work we have been dutifully attending to in the recent past. Wouldn’t you agree, Hiashi-san?”

Tedious. Specialized, joint cells of Uchiha and Hyuuga shinobi sent out like ANBU units— _only_ to be called upon in extenuating circumstances. Hyuuga and Uchiha were prized members of shinobi teams, given their obvious prowess, so it followed that it was more efficient to spread them out amongst the village rather than keeping them contained into single units.

Except, as Izuna and Hiashi continued to plan, when missions exceeding S-rank required more than any ordinary jounin team to investigate and intervene. In these cases, a unit comprised entirely of Uchiha and Hyuuga could potentially be the difference between life and death of Konoha shinobi that otherwise needn’t get involved.

Madara thought it interesting enough to pay attention with half an ear, though he also happened to find it ridiculous to think that _combining_ the clans was necessary. The police force was a testament to the overwhelming strength and dedication of the Uchiha to the village hidden in the leaves—if ever there was a need for a specialized unit that superseded jounin teams and ANBU, it should be one made entirely of Uchiha.

Their clan leaders thought similarly, but Izuna stood out from the rest in that he thought it important for future generations to have this peace between the two strongest clans of Konoha, and the shinobi world at large. Madara let him do his compromising, sometimes stepping in when Izuna’s patience and allowances exceeded Madara’s idea of the Uchiha clan’s best interests. Otherwise, however, he stuck to the sidelines and allowed his little brother to do what he did best: to negotiate, and to win.

Hiashi’s chin dropped half an inch, and Izuna mirrored him perfectly, his chin dipping no lower than that same measured space. The gesture signified the end of their discussions, and all four of them rose to their feet—Madara had noted Hiashi’s young assistant in the corner of the room with only marginal curiosity before dismissing him as a wayward Hyuuga errand. Now, however, the assistant moved forward and spoke into Hiashi’s ear, the elder accommodating the younger man’s lesser height with a slightly bowed posture.

“Ah,” Hiashi intoned, and Izuna turned back to him with a curiously raised brow. “I seem to have forgotten one last bit of information. Completely unrelated to our plans, Izuna-san. But relevant all the same.”

Madara crossed his arms over his chest, turning back to face the young, white-eyed clan leader. If he had anything going for him in the way of catching Madara’s interest, it was the fact that he had been the sole head of the clan by the time he was thirty. And now, with fifteen years of experience as a clan leader under his belt, he had much to show in the way of knowledge and lessons learned. His wisdom and his power, both sharpened through experience, weren’t useless. Madara recognized that rightfully.

Still, Madara himself had been the leader of his clan since he was twenty, and he was a completely different beast. His ten years of experience may pale Hiashi’s by five years, but he had led his clan through civil war with the senju and survived. More than that, even after the devastating loss, he had somehow managed to pull his people together and create the police force, gaining the village’s trust once more and falling back into a position of power once the Senju disappeared. He would not think about old friends, or old times. Instead, he focused on the future.

And the brightness of possibilities that he lined up in front of him.

“My daughter is approaching her twentieth birthday.” Hiashi said, rubbing at his jaw. “On her twenty-first, she will assume my position as clan leader, and I will be appointed her first counselor.”

Izuna’s shoulders tightened, making Madara turn completely to face Hiashi. Madara hadn’t paid much attention to the stilted information Hiashi shared of his heir beyond knowing some of her most pivotal advancements. Hiashi shared with them the moments when she became chuunin, then special jounin, and most recently jounin. She had been in training to take over the clan since she was born, and had a heavy hand in the politics taking place within the Hyuuga clan.

Madara had never once seen her, but he knew that she was an absent but active influence even in these discussions. He had never taken the time to wonder at her absence, however, beyond the first time it was noted. Hiashi had explained that she simply could not make the appointments, a matter of poor luck, and had Madara cared enough about the heir he would’ve pressed further.

But at the time, it hadn’t seemed relevant. That’s not to say that he had not checked up on the competition, keeping eyes and ears on her consistently and learning all that he could about this mysterious daughter of Hyuuga Hiashi’s.

Hyuuga Hinata; _sunny place_.

Would she rise over her clan and guide them towards greatness, just as her name promised? How would she fare against the shadowed nature of the Uchiha, whose very own leader was named for a soul speckled with disobedience?

Madara found sudden interest curling in his stomach, light and reaching, and when he glanced over to Izuna his curiosity only grew. His little brother, so proficient in masking his emotions, had faltered. Madara doubted that Hiashi could see the difference, even with his magnificent eyes—it took someone like Madara, who had grown up beside Izuna and cared for him for a lifetime to understand the intricacies of his emotions, and how they affected his expression.

His eyes were sharper than usual, narrowed at the edges, and Madara felt nearly breathless with the realization that it had something to do with this girl of Hiashi’s, this _heiress_.

“What a special day,” Madara spoke up, surprising Hiashi enough to draw his gaze away from Izuna. This left Izuna the time and the space to bring himself back in control of his mask, though that wasn’t actually Madara’s intention. He allowed his eyes to flicker over Hiashi’s face, the solid lines of strain and the gaunt lines of his cheeks. “My brother and I must prepare an offering. It would be so _dreadfully_ rude to appear before her for the first time without a gift.”

Hiashi’s eyes narrowed, suspicion laced in every crinkled line of his frowning mouth, but he did not reject the offer.

“Indeed,” he intoned lowly, even as his assistant stepped forward to stand just behind his shoulder, silently protective of the absent woman in discussion. Madara raised his brow at him. “I am certain that she will approve of your…courteousness.”

“As we will most certainly approve of her celebrated ascension. I must admit I’m a little surprised. We have heard so much about her political involvement and activism within the community, without ever having the privilege of meeting her in person.” Madara added the last riskily, toeing a very dangerous line that had Hiashi’s eyes narrowing for the quickest of moments. Madara paid him no mind, instead lifting a hand to run carelessly through the long length of his thick hair. His smile grew in murky shades of barbed insistence, the corners quirked in promise, and he watched Hiashi take in his expression with a brazen lack of fear that reeked of power rooted in confidence.

Madara met the challenge in Hiashi’s gaze and said at last, “It will be so very _interesting_ , I think, to finally put a face to the highly esteemed name.”

And instead of suspicion or doubt, Hiashi smiled with unhampered confidence, in such a way that immediately had Madara honing in on his next statement with more attention than he had deemed to offer him in months.

“Indeed, Madara-san. It will certainly be…interesting.” He said, his smile growing thorns. “I dare say that you will be become well-acquainted with surprise, my old friend.”

And with that, Hiashi dipped his chin and moved around them with his assistant a step behind him, the door sliding nearly silently shut behind them. Madara stood frozen for several moments, eyes flickering sightlessly over the tatami mats Hiashi had just vacated, wondering over the cryptic messages hidden in-between his words.

When Izuna turned towards him, Madara looked up into eyes so like his own, only differentiated by the visible lines of stress underneath them. They spoke to one another wordlessly, emotions and possibilities flickering through their stares, and before long Madara began to feel less of the oppressive defensiveness Hiashi’s remarks had left seeping through him. It dissipated and made room for something greater, something far more inclined to take up space within him.

The gaping maw of Madara’s curiosity came alive with a stretching yawn, and hunger burned through every line of his veins.

It had been so long since his curious nature had found a worthy target, a formidable opponent.

A single name moved through the shadows of his rapidly planning mind, and Madara’s smile held far too many teeth for Izuna’s liking.

He moved through the temple and the flames of nearby candles extinguished in his wake, his newly released chakra leaking out and stifling every ounce of energy within those holy walls. The moment his sandals made contact with the earth outside of the stone temple, he felt the world shift underneath him, in a new direction he had not yet considered. He glanced up and stared defiantly into the sun, ignoring the subtle burn that began in his temples, and his smile was that of a predator’s, moments before the capture of prey.

 _Hyuuga Hinata_.

This was going to be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> I do not know _why_ I am so obsessed with madahina but they're definitely a thing I'm lowkey (highkey) obsessed with. I have messed with ages and timelines and plots and all sorts of things just to make this happen. Just roll with it maybe, and thank you for reading : )


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